Little Saigon’s Insularity Is Melting--on the Ballot

The cultural barrier keeping Vietnamese Americans politically insular may be crumbling, experts say, now that four such candidates--a record number--are seeking city council seats at one time in Orange County fall elections.

Even if they don’t win, the decision by this many former Vietnamese immigrants to seek public office reflects growing confidence and maturity in a community forged by wartime and political exiles, the experts say.

“The Vietnamese community has gone from a refugee community to a community of citizens, who are now exercising their rights to vote and making a bid for political representation,” said Jeffrey Brody, an associate professor who teaches classes on the Vietnamese experience at Cal State Fullerton. “It reflects the maturation of the community.”

In the 25 years since the first wave of Vietnamese refugees began settling in Orange County, only a few have run for public office. One--Westminster businessman Tony Lam--has been successful.

This fall, half the six candidates running for two open Westminster City Council seats are Vietnamese. Peter Bui, Duoc Tan Nguyen and Andy Quach will run against appointed incumbent Kermit Marsh and elected incumbents Frank Fry Jr. and Joy L. Neugebauer.

A fourth Vietnamese American, Van Thai Tran, is among nine candidates seeking two council seats in Garden Grove. Others running for the council are Mark Rosen, Richard R. Rahder, Jason R. Edwards, Christopher Prevatt, Francis Nicklus, Anthony Joseph Flores, George Stephen Brietigam III and David L. Dunbar Jr.

“The Vietnamese are integrating into the larger American society,” said John Liu, associate professor of Asian studies and sociology at UC Irvine. “By participating, they’re saying that ‘we do care, and we’re going to be involved.’ ”

The political development comes at a time when the first and second waves of immigrants--those who fled Vietnam by the mid-1980s--are succeeding financially, learning English and gaining U.S. citizenship. Many now can vote.

It has not been an easy transition for people whose sense of government was formed during the Vietnam War. Many who fled Vietnam since the fall of Saigon in April 1975 came with a perception of politics as dirty, divisive and corrupt.

To educate the public, a coalition of Vietnamese Americans has published brochures in Vietnamese that explain the U.S. political system. Voter registration drives have been held for more than a decade. In 1994, Tran, the Garden Grove candidate, founded the Vietnamese American Voters Coalition, a nonpartisan group that aims to empower Vietnamese Americans through voter registration and education.

“We came to the realization that . . . advocacy and political involvement are the most practical means to influence decisions that affect the fate of the community,” said Tran, an attorney and Garden Grove planning commissioner.

“Elected officials will pay more heed to the wishes and concerns of the Vietnamese American community as the community gets more proactive in the electoral process,” said Tran, who at age 20 was an aide to Republican former Rep. Robert K. Dornan.

A pivotal moment came in January 1999, when Westminster’s Little Saigon erupted in a massive 53-day protest vigil over a merchant’s decision to hang a Vietnamese Communist flag in his video store on Bolsa Avenue. The display, by Truong Van Tran, enraged the fiercely anti-Communist members of Orange County’s Vietnamese exile community. The daily demonstrations drew as many as 15,000 people, some from cities as far as San Jose.

Thus in the international spotlight, the Vietnamese community seemed empowered by the realization that its members had mobilized for a common cause. But that sense of unity soon was fractured when leaders began to bicker publicly over power, money and fame. The council candidates say what drew them into the political arena is the desire to help heal some of those lingering divisions.

“If the Vietnamese community wants a real voice, they have to get into the mainstream,” said Bui, a Westminster candidate who owns an insurance office. “It’s the only way to go.”

He and the other two Westminster candidates, Quach and Nguyen, said the Vietnamese community needs representation on the City Council in large part because elected officials haven’t been responsive to the Vietnamese community.

Disputes over the annual Tet parade and festival, and the stalled erection of a war memorial to depict friendship between a U.S. and South Vietnamese soldier, have reflected those problems, they said.

“When the Vietnamese community applies for a permit, they run into a wall,” said Bui, 46, who came to the United States in 1978. “They don’t have a voice on the council to make any decisions for a city with the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.”

Quach, 28, is a career service specialist who immigrated to the United States in 1980. Nguyen, 56, who came in sixth out of seven in a 1998 council election, runs a tax and notary office.

Said Tran, the Garden Grove candidate: “We believe that as candidates, we have certain assets to bring to the political table . . . that other candidates may not have.”

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Times staff writers Scott Martelle and Ray Herndon contributed to this report.